Master Your Domain

Tyrese Gibson, star of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, gained weight and lost motivation. To right himself, he first had to change everything around him

"How lucky is it that mirrors steam up after a hot shower?" Tyrese Gibson asks. "I didn't have to look at what I'd done to myself." And every morning for a year, he didn't look. He'd towel off and hustle out of the bathroom before the steam could dissipate -- and before he'd be forced to see his once-chiseled body, the product of so much work, softened and bulging with some 50 pounds of new weight.

It happened because he'd eaten too much, sure, but the process didn't start that way. It started because he'd declared victory. Four years ago, Gibson had worked his way up the R&B charts, starred in the films Four Brothers and Annapolis, and knew people wanted him. He'd eat a cheese burger, and then a week's worth, and people still wanted him. He took jobs for granted and started feeling entitled, and they still wanted him. So he stopped working hard. He figured it'd all just keep coming.

He lost a sense of consequence, he says. It's easy to do: Accomplish something and your attitude can go from I'm working hard for this to This is mine. Do that and you've already failed. A boss doesn't promote you because you did work hard. A woman doesn't love you because you were devoted to her. They want you in the present and future tense: They expect you from here on in to work hard, to be devoted. Start coasting and you'll roll backward.

Gibson didn't understand that. How can you see a problem if you block out criticism? When you won't look at yourself because you're afraid of what you'll see? The truth is he knew what he'd see. If something's wrong with your life, you know it. Gibson ignored his problem by partying and hanging with slackers. They liked him lazy. They weren't about to tell him to stop, to think, to look.

But one guy did. A friend connected Gibson with Will Smith -- a man Gibson saw as happier and more successful. In Gibson, Smith saw a man who had lost his way. So he told Gibson that to truly succeed, he'd have to change everything around him. It was all part of the problem. Everything.

"It's the mirror effect," Gibson says. "You shine a mirror on everybody else and critique their lives, but what about you? What are you doing?"

No more steam. Stand naked in front of a clear mirror and take a good look. Gibson did, and he saw a confused, 248-pound man. He had some hard choices to make. And now, 2 years later, he smiles at his 203- pound reflection.

"We men have to put our pride and egos aside and just say, 'You know what? I need help,' " Gibson says. "Bring something to the table. To somebody who has the keys to whatever door you're trying to go through, say, 'Look, man, I have five keys of my own, but I'm trying to figure out how to get these other keys.' "

Think of it this way: Every man is surrounded by better men. A man who's more financially secure than you are can teach you something, and chances are he can also learn something from you. So approach him. Collaborate. Successful men aren't symbols of your inferiority; they're examples worth engaging.